


Textual Liberation

by matrixrefugee



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-20 06:24:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17617205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: While shopping at an indie bookstore, Mozzie and Neal have a lively discussion on the merit of print books





	Textual Liberation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/profile)[fic_promptly](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/)'s [White Collar, Mozzie, Pirated ebooks.](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/196801.html?thread=8414401#cmt8414401) Also featuring an unexpected stealth crossover.

Thankfully, Neal had found a decent-sized independent bookstore within the radius of his tracking anklet, and he made a habit of popping in once a week to see what new titles had turned up. The proprietor, Boch, a gruff-voiced bear of a man with a gentle hand when it came to handling books, kept a wide selection on the shelves, ranging from mass market paperbacks for the duffers -- his primary means of paying the rent and keeping food on his table since their sale proved more guaranteed -- and all the way up to vintage classics with cloth or leather bindings and even the odd rare first edition that someone brought in from an estate sale or a thrift shop. That gave the place a mix of aromas: the cool, sharp tang of new books contrasting the warm, rich musk of vintage books, that magical scent that allured Neal.

Still, to get to the older books, he had to pass among the shelves of new books and in so doing, on one stack of shelves, he spotted something odd out of the corner of his eye: several titles in print, "dead tree" fashion, which he knew that he had seen on Amazon, available only through their Kindle store. As he stood there raising his eyebrows at this sight, a short, stocky, bespectacled form moved in from behind, laden down with an armload of more paper-bound books, setting to work stacking them on the shelf.

"Got the jump on the glue and paper version of those titles, Mozzie?" Neal asked.

Mozzie looked up from his haul, giving Neal an "oh, come now" look of disdain over the frames of his eyeglasses. "I've been liberating these texts from the confines of the pixel press and from under the heels of the digital goons," he retorted.

"Come again?" Neal asked, though he had an idea where this conversation would likely go.

"These books might not be classic literature just yet -- remember that _Madame Bovary_ and _Les Liaisons Dangereuses_ were the _50 Shades of Grey_ of another time, only with far better quality of writing -- but that's no reason to keep the text trapped on a square of plastic and silicon," Mozzie replied. "Do you know that the NSA has started monitoring people's e-book preferences? I have evidence that they've embedded subliminal messages into the electronic fabric of e-books. This, my friend, gives the reader access to the same text without the risk of the government reading over their shoulder, or brainwashing them with messages to keep them all so docile and sheeplike."

"So you're printing them in dead tree format?" Neal said, with a smirk of approval at his friend's methods, if not the ideology behind it.

Mozzie rolled his eyes, shaking his head. "Will you refrain from calling these *books* by that jejune name? You sound like one of those twelve year olds with smart phones surgically embedded into their hands. Bookbinding is a time honored craft and an art which -- like so many others -- has been pushed to the brink of extinction by the advent of the digital text and the oxymoronic 'paperless paperwork'. I doubt Gutenberg would stand for it, if he knew that books as strings of ink impressions on paper folded between covers had been supplanted by a bland screen with text rear projected on its surface."

"No arguments there, but your speech is gonna tip off the shopkeeper, if not the customers," Neal warned, glancing around without turning his head. Tallying an order for a small, slight woman with a large stack of books kept the shopkeeper busy. But a couple shelves over, two guys in black suits -- one short, professorish looking and bespectacled, wearing a distinctive purple waistcoat, the other tall, dark and vaguely menacing, favoring one side as if his black topcoat concealed a weapon -- looked in Mozzie's direction a few times before turning back to their conversation.

"Boch's busy waiting on Lucy the bookworm, and the two guys in suits are Weird Harold and his boyfriend," Mozzie replied patiently. "Lucy and Harold are no more friends of the pixel press than I am, and Boch's more than happy to help liberate stories from silicon."

"What about Weird Harold's boyfriend?" Neal asked, darting another look at the tall guy: he did not look like a Fed, but something about him put Neal on the alert.

"That guy's not the brightest bulb on the tree when it comes to books, but Harold's giving him some polish," Mozzie replied.

"Guess you've got safe company for your free-thinking press," Neal said.


End file.
